January 21, 2007
Cell Phone: Art and the Mobile Phone
Artists are discovering the aesthetic potential of cell phones writes the Baltimore Sun, reporting on a cell phone exhibit showing at Maryland's Contemporary Museum.
"Cell Phone: Art and the Mobile Phone explores some of the groundbreaking works that are being created by artists today using cell phone technologies. These works engage such features and technologies as camera phones, video phones, global positioning systems, Bluetooth technology, ring tone sounds, and messaging.
Cell Phone features an international group of over 30 artists and artist collectives representing the range of artworks being created with and for a mobile phone device. Some of the works in Cell Phone take the form of a sculptural object, like Beatrice Valentine Amrhein’s Videos Lustre (2006) which features dozens of cell phones hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier (picture left), each running a short film on the cell phone’s screen.
Other works, like TXTual Healing (2002-2007) by Paul Notzold, or cell:block (2007) by the artist collective URBANtells, invite the audience to contribute content to a work through text messages or photos sent from their cell phones.
Another category of works in the exhibition include those that involve downloading a program, a video, or an image to your mobile device. Angie Waller’s clip.fm, for example, expands the communicative possibilities of cell phones through a series of narrative animations that can be downloaded and sent to friends instead of a text message.
Other works like Mark Shepard’s Tactical Sound Garden (2004-2006) or Blast Theory’s Uncle Roy All Around You (2003) introduce software to a mobile device that allows audience members to participate with others in an interactive performance. Making a call from a cell phone will connect visitors with yet another group of works in the exhibition.
Talking on a cell phone while walking through Informationlab’s room-sized installation Cell Phone Disco (2006), for example, will make visible the aura of an active cell phone’s signal by creating a trace of blinking lights on the gallery walls.
In other works, a phone number will be given to access pieces such as Steve Bradley’s Call & Response: HydroSistrum which willnvite visitors to dial a number to listen to data related to the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay, including information about water quality, currents, and temperature.
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